Notice: The contest is now closed. Check back in later for the posting of the winning entries. Thanks all and Happy New Year’s!

Today, in 1965, Benjamin Edward Stiller was born in New York City to the comedy duo Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. That makes him 43, for those keeping count.

This has been a banner year for Ben, with Tropic Thunder which he co-wrote and directed becoming a box office hit; and the sequel to Madagascar exceeding the success of the first (and guaranteeing a third installment). Earlier this month, Ben was saluted for his work by his home town’s Museum of the Moving Image Black Tie event.

In honor of his many accomplishments– and in celebration of ten years of BenStiller.net– I’m giving away presents for his true fans, in a sort of essay contest:

Ultimately, anti-”retard” activists are trying to do what I didn’t do while that fellow fixed our ceiling fan: Say something. Or at least to get people, perhaps especially people like me — who found the Simple Jack business hilarious precisely because we’re so offended by “respectful” films like “Rain Man,” and who are deeply aware of the power of words both to pinpoint and to prick — to at least think twice about the insult’s real-life impact.

In my view, the artificially-created controversy by certain individuals in the disabilities rights community sparks of opportunism and mistargeting. Where were the activists when satirical comedies like Southpark and The Family Guy used similar “hate speech?” Maybe it’s more obviously intended to be satire when done in a cartoon. The failed boycott against Tropic Thunder has made the US activists look like humorless, overly-PC word censors. In the UK, a country known for its biting and satirical wit, the movie just premiered with nary a protester in sight– which may be an indication of how much more humor-advanced the Brits are.

Even at Salon.com, there’s not a single opinion on “retard” — last month, a review of the movie by Stephanie Zacharek notes,

A coalition of disability-advocate groups is organizing a boycott of “Tropic Thunder” based on what they see as the offensiveness of the “Simple Jack” gags. Stiller has defended the “Simple Jack” gags as a satire of prestige-seeking actors, not of people with disabilities, and his argument holds water. You could say the gags are offensive, to the extent that they use language we’ve sought to abolish in everyday speech. But comedy needs the right to be offensive, and Stiller at least has the courage of his convictions: When he uses the word “retard,” it’s deliberate, not casual. The “Simple Jack” jokes would be more offensive if Stiller had substituted tasteful, half-assed synonyms for the word we all know we’re not supposed to use.

Ben just appeared on one of the UK’s leading chat shows, Friday night with Jonathan Ross. He talked about the origins of Tropic Thunder, including his early attempt to audition for Platoon, as well as his appreciation of Tom Cruise.